


constellations

by honey_butter



Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Genre: Aroace Riz Gukgak, Asexuality Spectrum, Gen, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Stargazing, it's angsty in a very teen way, that moment when nearly all of your friends are in relationships and very annoying about it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-12 21:40:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29391351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honey_butter/pseuds/honey_butter
Summary: Jawbone has seen him do this before, and has gotten him to brainstorm a list of alternatives, but in the moment that list goes out the window and he’s running, running, running again. Away from and towards something and his heart is beating too loudly in his chest but it’s fine, it’s all good, Riz is a fucking level nine rogue, he can book it if he wants to.Riz and running and stars and friends.
Relationships: Riz Gukgak & Adaine Abernant & Ragh Barkrock
Comments: 30
Kudos: 84





	constellations

**Author's Note:**

> *baron voice* riiiiiz gukgaaaaak. hi, it's valentine's day and i wanted to write some aroace riz appreciation because he is very important to me.
> 
> fair warning: this is slightly angsty (because baron and other Teen Things) but i think it ends on a warm note. additional trigger warnings for unhealthy coping mechanisms and compulsory exercise as a coping mechanism. please take care of yourselves!!

It’s just shy of midnight and Riz is on his twentieth lap around Mordred Manor. He can barely hear the sounds of his friends leaking out through the warm windows, their laughter too close and too distant all at once. The air is harsh, biting in his lungs—they’d gotten a frost the night before and the world seems stuck in the harsh crystalline state that accompanies an abrupt temperature drop, making Riz’s chest feel frozen and stiff.

Clouds of breath puff out in front of him as he huffs around the house, legs and heart pounding to the errant sounds of Fig’s bass. He’d had to escape the overbearing stuffiness of his friends, of their girlfriends and boyfriends and the obnoxious way none of them seemed to care who was around to watch them suck each other’s faces off. Riz knows that _he_ would care, if that were him. _He_ wouldn’t be feeling up his partner on the couch where his friend would have to sleep later *cough, cough* _Kristen._

And it’s not like Riz is a total stick in the mud. He _gets it._ “People hook up, dad,” and all that. But it’s also just… sometimes there isn’t enough alcohol in the world to distract himself when his friends decide that their hangouts are the best times to get it on. Sometimes, Riz gets sick and tired of the way everyone seems to forget he exists, of the way they talk about sex likes it’s easy and _fun_ to be all over another person, to have another person be all over you.

So, yeah. Riz thinks he’s entitled to some near-midnight sprint sessions. It’s not like anyone’s noticed he’s missing.

Riz blinks, hard, as he swings around the corner of the house again. His feet have stopped feeling like feet anymore and he isn’t sure if he can get himself to slow down now, if he’ll ever be able to slow down again. Everytime he nears the living room, he can see his friends through the windows, even though he isn’t trying to look.

Fig has her bass plugged in and is plucking absentmindedly, her forehead leaning against Ayda’s, completely lost in one another. Kristen and Tracker are… doing _something_ on the couch that Riz knows isn’t sex but also isn’t not sex-adjacent, and Aelwyn has Fabian pinned up against a wall, her mouth right next to his ear and his face doing something Riz never wants to see ever again. Gorgug and Zelda are at least just cuddling, closer to Fig’s intensity than the others, but it still hurts something in Riz’s chest to see them like that, to see them sharing kisses and giggles like they’re secrets. 

Adaine and Ragh, at least, are sitting on the floor, painting each other’s toenails. Adaine’s tongue sticks out in concentration, her glasses glinting in the warm light of their lamps so brightly that they momentarily blind Riz’s eyes as he darts past. Usually, Riz would be fine sitting in the corner with them, letting Adaine or Ragh practice new painting techniques on his ridiculously long claws, but the much-ness of everyone else was too overbearing, too uncomfortable, and Riz had bolted as soon as it became clear that The Bad Kids would be more interested in pairing off than remaining as a group.

The running is a not-quite-healthy habit he’s been trying his best to kick. For some reason, when he gets uncomfortable, when the memory of Baron’s whispered _“The years will go by and they will all find someone who matters more to them than you,”_ becomes too loud in his head, Riz’s ears flick back and his tail starts twitching and if he doesn’t start running he’ll do something much worse, something like standing in the middle of his friends and screaming loud enough to wake all the ghosts in the graveyard.

Trying to stop running isn’t actually the same as stopping, though, and so far Riz hasn’t found an alternative good enough for the anxiety in his chest. At least he’s outside what functions as his second home, instead of a random fancy-boy hotel in Bastion City or at a party where there’s no avoiding the stares and pointed whispering about why the same weird goblin boy has gone flying around the perimeter ten times. Jawbone has seen him do this before, and has gotten him to brainstorm a list of alternatives, but in the moment that list goes out the window and he’s running, running, running again. Away from and towards something and his heart is beating too loudly in his chest but it’s fine, it’s all good, Riz is a fucking level nine rogue, he can book it if he wants to.

None of that stops him from wiping out, though, not even his crazy dex bonus. His shoe catches on a patch of leftover ice and he goes down hard, slamming all of the air from his chest and cracking his head on the ground. He’s dizzy for a little while, lying there as the cold seeps in through the back of his shirt and strokes its icy fingers over his sides, worming its way in between his ribs and below his breastbone and into his heart. The world is spinning like he’s back in the land of mirrors, and he has to swallow hard to keep the rising fear of a ghostly white mannequin out of the corners of his vision.

_I killed Baron, my friends love me. I killed Baron, my friends love me._ He chants, over and over again, but his head hurts and it’s hard to keep those two thoughts in their correct positions, to keep the Baron and the friends distinguished from each other.

“Shit, Riz? Are you okay?” He blinks up to see Adaine and Ragh running around the corner, neither of them wearing shoes and Adaine wrapped up in a mothball ridden throw.

“I’m fine, guys. Just… chilling?”

Adaine stops somewhere around the vicinity of his head, peering down at him with a funny look on her face. “You’re chilling? On the ground?”

“Yeah?”

Ragh seems to consider something for all of point one seconds before he throws himself down next to Riz, spreading his arms out like a starfish and bumping Riz’s shoulder with his hand. “Dude, why didn’t you invite us?!”

“Um…”

“Bro! I totally get why you’re down here. Look at the stars!” Ragh points up at the sky with the hand that was on Riz’s shoulder, and Riz looks up for the first time.

It’s… breathtaking. Riz hasn’t seen stars like this since they were in Fallinell, or riding across the ocean to Leviathan. Strongtower Luxury Apartments are permanently lit up, glowing with harsh LEDs and the red neon lights of the sign out front. It’s some sort of anti-crime system thing, and Riz has tried to tell their landlord that, uh, having Sklonda and Riz Gukgak there is pretty much the best anti-crime system you can get, but no dice. Out here in the area where Mordred is, though, there’s no lights besides the house. They’re on a little strip of land by the cemetery, with a hardly used road and their only neighbors about five miles in each direction, and the darkness isn’t washed out like Riz knows an Elmville sky should be.

The stars are twinkling, and Riz can see the edges of the milky way if he squints. It’s gorgeous and a little bit too much to handle and Riz doesn’t consider himself religious but he makes a mental note to leave something on Kristen’s altar to Cassandra. It would make sense if it was the goddex extending a small amount of divine blessing to them, but sometimes a sky is just a sky and beauty is simply beautiful without the help of the divine.

Adaine’s neck is craned up at an uncomfortable angle, gnawing on her lip in thought as she takes in the entire world of starlight above them, and she isn’t paying any attention when Riz grabs her ankle and swipes it hard enough to send her tumbling to the ground with them.

_“Riz!”_ Adaine shrieks, indignant and giggling at the same time, as she lands with a loud thud and an incredibly mangled dex save.

“Whoops,” Riz grins at her, all pointy teeth.

Ragh laughs and grabs both of their shoulders, dragging them around so that they lay in a circle with all of their heads in the center, nearly touching at the crowns of their heads. “This is fucking baller, dude. Like we should get everyone else out here, it’s fuckin’ sick as hell.”

Riz’s breath catches a little bit in the back of his throat, clogging on something that he tries and fails to swallow down. Adaine reaches over and grabs his tail where it has started flicking through the air.

“Isn’t it nice just the three of us, though? Everyone else would be so loud.” Adaine says, and Riz cranes his neck back to see the cloud of breath ghost up into the air above her.

“Oh, yeah. That’s true.”

They lay there in silence for a while, and it’s still freezing but warm at the same time. Ragh starts to point out clusters of stars and constellations and Adaine helps him name them in hushed tones, her hand holding onto Riz’s tail.

“There’s no way that’s fuckin’ Orion, dude. It looks like a, uh, squid. Yeah.”

“A squid?” Riz knows Adaine is doing her little affronted head shake where she shuts her eyes and seems to center all movement around her nose.

“Yeah, like. See, those are his tentacles there, and that’s his little body. And he’s got a laser gun right up there!”

Riz laughs out loud at that, rolling over a little bit to look at Ragh. “Dude, I don’t think squids have laser guns.”

“They might. How would you know?”

“Okay. That’s fair, I guess.”

“You guys are both—” Adaine doesn’t finish her thought, just shaking her head at them and sighing.

“Hey, say it to my face!” Ragh says, and he’s smiling so wide that Riz can’t help but remember that Ragh and Adaine live together now, have lived together for nearly a year, and that they look out for each other in a way Riz doesn’t have the reference points to understand but knows it’s both similar and different to how Aelwyn will braid Adaine’s hair after a long day of school.

Adaine laughs and points up at another cluster of stars, “I don’t know this one.”

Riz squints and tilts his head, “They look kind of like the Hangman.”

Ragh scoffs, “Yeah, if the Hangman looked like a three-legged cow.”

“What is it with you and the animals?” Adaine asks, snorting.

“I don’t know, man. What is it with you and the weird names?”

“That’s fair, actually,” Riz says, and earns himself a whack to the shoulder from Adaine.

Silence stretches around them after that, the world breathing and sighing, ice cracking somewhere down the road from them. Fig’s bass is comforting now, where it dances from the windows, and the golden light at Riz’s side filters out to dust Adaine’s cheekbones and Ragh’s tusks.

“It kinda sucks that they’re… like that,” Riz finally says, hands shoved into his pockets to keep from fiddling.

“Who?” Ragh asks, obviously confused and not trying to make the situation worse. 

Riz feels like a live wire, anyway. “You know. Them. Everyone else. They’re so… much.”

Adaine hums, rubbing her thumb over the tuft of fur at the end of his tail. “Yes, I agree. They need to learn boundaries. We should have a chat.”

“Oh, yeah. If I had a dude to fuckin’ like kiss and shit, I wouldn’t be doing all that in the living room. It’s rude.”

“Yep,” Riz says, popping the ‘p.’

“Allos are wack,” Adaine says and there’s that warmth and that cold again.

It’s comfortable, on the ground with Ragh and Adaine, and their topic of conversation is less painful than Riz had dreaded, but the air is still frozen in his lungs and his hands are shaking slightly.

“I mean I’m allo but hell yeah, dude. Hoot growl.” Ragh says, pounding a fist against the ground.

“We should just outlaw kissing in the living room. And all the rooms where we may be forced to see it,” Adaine says, staring up at the stars.

“Good plan,” Riz agrees. “Like, I’m fine with them doing whatever they want. But—”

“—Why do we all have to see it?” Adaine finishes for him, tugging on his tail lightly. “I thought it was bad when we were stuck in a van together.”

“At least we were all in our own little compartments then.”

Ragh sighs wistfully, “Man, I miss my van room. I had a little pocket of, um, fuckin’ spoons.”

“...Spoons?”

“In case Gilear needed them, dude! That guy’s sad as hell, like, if I can make sure he doesn’t use a shoe to eat his yogurt again I will.”

“I’m sorry, he _what?”_ Adaine shrieked, giggling.

Riz just shakes his head, muttering, “Gilear,” under his breath as Ragh launches into a story about the time he saw Gilear trying to eat spoiled lemon yogurt with a flip flop at the beginning of Spring Break.

And just like that, the discomfort is lifted from his chest, the cold ebbing away and leaving a happy kind of peace behind. It isn’t that Riz was upset about his friends kissing whoever they wanted to kiss, it isn’t even that he felt weird thinking about it, it’s just… When they decide to have Friend Time and that Friend Time turns into Sucking Face Time it’s disappointing and a little hurtful and Riz is still a teen struggling with who he is and all the trauma that comes with being an adventurer. Trauma that’s bone white and cold and fucking scary. But laying out here helps. Talking it over with Ragh and Adaine and looking at the stars and hearing about the time that _Fantasy Jesus Gilear what the actual fuck were you thinking_ helps. And sure, maybe most of Riz’s friends have a significant other, have a sweetie to snuggle or, unfortunately, more than snuggle, but it’s okay because they still love Riz. They still care about him and want to spend time with him. And when they’re busy snuggling he and Adaine and sometimes maybe Ragh can hang out on the freezing ground and watch the stars.

“Hey, you wanna go back inside? I think I can hear them singing,” Adaine says after they’ve transitioned away from Gilear disappointment and back to the night sky.

Riz breathes in deeply one last time, the stars winking down at him. “Yeah, sure.”

Ten minutes and one round of badly executed group karaoke to The Pina Colada Song later, Riz is sandwiched on the couch between Adaine and Fabian and Gorgug is by his foot and Fig is leaning heavily on the top of his head and Kristen is screaming along to Fantasy Abba way too close to his ear and things may be overwhelming sometimes, things may make him feel like running, but Riz is warm and Riz is loved and that’s enough to make Baron roll in his cold, dead, mannequin grave.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!! i hope you liked it!! i normally write a lot of fabriz but i also love aroace riz and i wanted to try and write that too.
> 
> i'm on tumblr at [labelleofbelfastcity](https://labelleofbelfastcity.tumblr.com/) and i'm always willing to talk about fantasy high!! don't be shy to comment, and i hope you have an excellent day/night.


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